Found 28 talks width keyword high-redshift galaxies

Our Universe is filled with a mind-blowing diversity and different types and appearances of galaxies. Finding out about how they formed and evolved is one of the most challenging tasks in astronomy. When looking about 10 billion years back, to an epoch about 3 billion years after the big bang, we can see galaxies at earlier stages of their lives. In this talk, studies of different kinds of galaxies in the early universe will be presented. Two examples of the very intriguing population of massive quiescent z~2 galaxies were analyzed in terms of their stellar populations and morphologies. As the spectroscopic sample is still small, especially for galaxies at the faint end of the luminosity function, we make use of the biggest available "telescopes" in the universe: We search for red z~2 galaxies whose apparent brightnesses have been boosted by the Gravitational Lensing effect of intermediate redshift galaxy clusters with available mass models. Our findings indicate older ages for these galaxies than expected. Also, their remarkable compactness was corroborated. Furthermore, I'm going to present a study of a special case of so-called Damped Lyman-alpha Absorbers (DLAs), with two intervening galaxies in the line of sight of a higher-redshift QSO, which is also one example of only about a dozen known galaxy counterparts of a DLA. It fits into the emerging paradigm that galaxies which are responsible for higher metallicity DLAs are more massive and luminous than typical DLA galaxies. Motivated by that particular discovery, during the past few years we have undertaken a survey targeting candidate dust-reddened quasars missing in the sample from Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Spectroscopic follow-up with the NOT and the NTT has demonstrated a very high success rate of our selection (>90%). The main motivation is to search for quasars reddened by foreground dusty galaxies and we have found several such examples. We have also serendipitously found quasars with abnormal, very UV-steep extinction curves as well as a large number of broad absorption line quasars (BALs). The latter allow us to study the dependence of the BAL QSO population on redshift, reddening and luminosity. The results show a strong evolution of the BAL QSO fraction with cosmic time, with a peak at z~2.5 where several quantities in the Universe are also found to peak or vary. In addition,the dependence of this fraction with reddening and luminosity provides new constraints on the models for broad absorption origin in quasars. We are currently carrying out a pilot study of a search for even redder quasars selected from a combination of SDSS, UKIDSS and WISE photometry with the aim of selecting very dust-obscurred quasars or high-redshift BALs at z>2. Preliminary results from the first run et the NOT in March 2015 of the brightest candidates show very promising results which will also be briefly shown in the talk.

One of the most widely researched topics in Extragalactic Astrophysics
in the last decades is how early-type galaxies have formed their stars
and assembled. In this context, we now have unequivocal observational
evidences about the existence of a numerous population of massive
galaxies which not only had assembled a considerable amount of stars
(~10^{^11} M_sun) by z~2, but were already evolving passively by that
time. These galaxies, the likely progenitors of nearby ellipticals,
are also quite compact in comparison with local galaxies of the same
mass. These result are mainly based on measurements designed to obtain
stellar masses and sizes, and our estimations of these parameters are
now quite robust. Now we need a more secure determination of how
exactly they formed and assembled their stellar mass in just 2-3 Gyr
(z>2). In other words, how was their Star Formation History and which
are the properties (age, metallicity, dust content) of their stellar
populations? And how could they end up with such high masses and small
sizes? In this talk, we will present our results about the SFH (mainly
ages and duty cycles) of massive galaxies at z=1-3 based on the
deepest spectro-photometric data ever taken. These data were gathered
by the Survey for High-z Absorption Red and Dead Sources (SHARDS), a
ESO/GTC Large Program aimed at obtaining R~50 optical spectra of
distant galaxies. This resolution is especially suited to measure
absorption indices such as D(4000), Mg_UV, the Balmer break,etc.. for
galaxies up to z~3 (merging our SHARDS data with HST/WFC3 grism
observations) or emission-line fluxes for faint targets up to
z~6. These measurements represent a big step forward for the robust
determination of the stellar population properties, providing a much
more certain characterization of the stellar content of distant
galaxies than the typical broad-band studies. Our results uniquely
allow to study the stellar content of red and dead galaxies at z~2 and
identify progenitors at higher redshifts, as well as helping to
constrain the models of galaxy formation.

The first galaxies are thought to have started the reionization of the Universe, that is the transformation of the cosmic hydrogen from its initial neutral to its present ionized state that occurred during the first few hundred million years after the Big Bang. I will review the key physics of reionization by the first galaxies and highlight the computational challenges of simulating the relevant processes, primarily the transport of ionizing photons. I will introduce the radiative transfer method TRAPHIC that we have developed to address these challenges. I will discuss the application of TRAPHIC in zoomed cosmological simulations of the first galaxies and evaluate the prospects for observing these galaxies with the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope. I will conclude by presenting first results from Aurora, a new suite of simulations to investigate reionization and galaxy formation across a large range of scales.

DESI is a massively multiplexed fiber-fed spectrograph that will make the next
major advance in dark energy in the timeframe 2018-2022. On the Mayall
telescope, DESI will obtain spectra and redshifts for tens of millions of
galaxies and cuasars with 5,000 fiber postioner robots, constructing a
3-dimensional map spanning the nearby universe to 10 billion light years. DESI
is supported by the US Department of Energy Office of Science to perform this
Stage IV dark energy measurement using baryon acoustic oscillations and other
techniques that rely on spectroscopic measurements. Spain has a major role in
DESI with the construction of the Focal Plate and the development of the fiber
positioners. I will give an overview of the DESI science, instrument, and Spain
participation in the project.

Galaxy clusters are the perfect places to study both the always controversial nature vs nurture problem and the still not well understood evolution that galaxies follow. By studying the properties of the galaxies at different locations of the cluster we can assess the first problem, while studying the same properties over cosmic time, helps constraining the different proposed evolutionary theories. In this work we have focused in an intermediately-redshift rich cluster, RX J0152.7-1357 (z=0.83), by fully characterizing its stellar population properties with new state-of-the-art tools . By this means, we have derived for the first time in such a high-z cluster the ages, metallicities, abundance patterns and Star Formation Histories of the cluster ETGs on an individual galaxy-basis . The relations that these properties follow with galaxy velocity dispersion allow us to discuss a passive evolution scenario with respect to a cluster at z~0. Our results favor a downsizing picture where the relation between the position within the cluster, the velocity dispersion and the type of star formation history of the galaxies allow us to better understand the cluster evolution. We find that the most massive galaxies evolve passively while the lower-mass ones, generally located at the outskirts of the cluster, experience a more extended star formation history related to their later incorporation in the cluster.

As early as 10 Gyr ago, galaxies with more than 10^11 M* in stars already existed. While most of these massive galaxies must have subsequently transformed through on-going star formation and mergers with other galaxies, a small fraction (<0.1%) may have survived untouched till today. Searches for such relic galaxies, useful windows to explore the early Universe, have been inconclusive to date. In this talk, we will present the first case of a nearby galaxy, NGC1277 (at a distance of 73 Mpc in the Perseus galaxy cluster), which fulfils many criteria to be considered a relic galaxy. Using deep optical spectroscopy, we derive the star formation history along the structure of the galaxy: the stellar populations are uniformly old (>10 Gyr) with no evidence for more recent star formation episodes. The metallicity of their stars is super-solar ([Fe/H]=0.20+-0.04 with a smooth decline towards the outer regions) and alpha enriched ([alpha/Fe]=0.4+-0.1). This suggests a very short formation time scale for the bulk of stars of this galaxy. This object also rotates very fast (V_{rot}~300 km/s) and has a large central velocity dispersion (sigma>300 km/s). NGC1277 allows the explorations in full detail of properties such as the structure, internal dynamics, metallicity and initial mass function at ~10-12 Gyr back in time when the first massive galaxies were built.

The flow of gas from the cosmic web into galaxies provides the necessary fuel for star formation and galaxy assembly. I will review our current knowledge about gas accretion into galaxies and its consequences for galaxy formation at high and low redshifts. Special attention will be given to the detectability of cold streams as Lyman-alpha blobs or Lyman-Limit systems, as well as the current challenges to the cold-flow picture.

How do the first galaxies form and evolve? Optical and near-infrared deep surveys are now finding galaxies at very high redshifts. However, they are typically small, not massive and present some but not very high star formation. But now the Herschel Multi-tiered Extragalactic Survey (HerMES), the largest project that has being carried out with the Herschel Space Observatory, in collaboration with other groups, has discovered a massive, maximum-starburst galaxy at a redshift of 6.34. The presence of galaxies like HFLS3 in the early Universe challenges current theories of galaxy fomation and evolution. I will describe the method we have developed to find these galaxies, the follow-up observations with different facilities and the main physical properties of this extreme object.

Taking advantage of the ultra-deep near-infrared imaging obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope on the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, we detect and explore for the first time the properties of the stellar haloes of two Milky Way-like galaxies at z~1. We find that the structural properties of those haloes (size and shape) are similar to the ones found in the local universe. However, these high-z stellar haloes are approximately three magnitudes brighter and exhibit bluer colours ((g-r)<0.3 mag) than their local counterparts. The stellar populations of z~1 stellar haloes are compatible with having ages <1 Gyr. This implies that the stars in those haloes were formed basically at 1<z<2. This result matches very well the theoretical predictions that locate most of the formation of the stellar haloes at those early epochs. A pure passive evolutionary scenario, where the stellar populations of our high-z haloes simply fade to match the stellar halo properties found in the local universe, is consistent with our data.